Keystone PC
Sunday, February 8
      • Bible Trivia
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  • Gloria Patri
  • Doxology
  • Open to the book of Hebrews. We continue our look at what this preacher had to say and teach to the early church and to this church today. I hope you have your Bibles because there is a lot in this short passage that we need to hear and follow.
    Hebrews 2:1–4 CSB
    1 For this reason, we must pay attention all the more to what we have heard, so that we will not drift away. 2 For if the message spoken through angels was legally binding and every transgression and disobedience received a just punishment, 3 how will we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? This salvation had its beginning when it was spoken of by the Lord, and it was confirmed to us by those who heard him. 4 At the same time, God also testified by signs and wonders, various miracles, and distributions of gifts from the Holy Spirit according to his will.
    What is the real threat to us in this time? What should we concern ourselves with first?
    It isn’t the threat of being shot; though that is a possibility these days.
    It isn’t the threat of having the government turn against us. And we do see in the news how those who oppose God are turning the government against Christianity.
    It isn’t many things that we often talk and preach about. What is the real threat?
    It is to harden our hearts and drift away from God.
    The real threat is a heart problem.
    The early Hebrews had been slaves in Egypt. They had been treated harshly. Then God sent Moses to lead them out of Egypt and into the promised land. They witnessed what happened when Pharoah hardened his heart against God. Along the way, they encountered many obstacles and witnessed God over come everything in their path for them. And yet, they still hardened their hearts and often drifted away from God.
    What can we learn from them and from the preacher in Hebrews?

    1. Priority of Paying Attention

    With PTSD, I sometimes have issues focusing and remembering.
    It is part of the reason I haven’t started a doctorate. I can read something and before I realize it, my mind is on something entirely different, a lot of the time about things from deployments. And then I have to re-read what I just read. It can be very difficult and depressing to read something and before I even get to the end I have forgotten what I had begun to read.
    I did it when working on this sermon. I actually read a paragraph six times before I was able to read it from the beginning to the end and retain much of what it was saying.
    There are several reasons PTSD causes concentration issues. And there are different techniques I have to use to refocus so I can read and retain.
    That is enough about PTSD. What I want us to focus on is paying attention. There are certain things that we had better pay attention to or the lack of attention will get you killed.
    If you are going to ride motorcycles, drive cars or even ride bicycles, you had better pay attention to what you are doing.
    A lack of attention can cause you to lose your life or worse, to take a life. Several years ago when I was on my motorcycle, I was stopped in traffic at a red light. A woman hit me from behind because she wasn’t paying attention. Well to be honest, she was paying attention, just not to driving her car. She had dropped her phone and decided it was more important to bend down and find her phone than it was to drive her car. The result was to hit me from behind and slam me forward about 10 into the car in front of me.
    If you are going to drive a 3-5,000 lb vehicle, then you need to pay attention to driving; not just driving but driving the correct and responsible way.
    My oldest sister, Teri, had just started driving with her permit. I remember a few times she almost wrecked. For some reason, when she was coming up to an intersection she would pll over to the right just a bit, even if she was turning left. Cars behind her would pull to her left so they could turn, even if she had a turn signal on. I really didn’t know what was going on until mom pointed out what was happening to Teri. She and I both learned a lesson about driving.
    If we are going to drive a car, then we must pay attention to driving the car. And that should be our first priority.
    What does the preacher of Hebrews say we should pay attention to as Christians?
    In school there were those teachers that emphasized certain things because they knew it would be on an upcoming test. Some of them would repeat certain things over and over. Others might stomp their foot when they say something.
    The preacher in Hebrews was a little more direct.
    “We must pay attention … to what we have heard.”
    Specifically, 2:1 is telling us we must pay attention to everything the preacher has just said. We must pay attention to Jesus Christ.
    Everything in chapter 1 teaches us about Christ. We must pay attention, take heed, believe, hold firmly to Christ. Not just what the preacher has said in his sermon to the Hebrews but also to all Scripture that teaches us about Jesus. For us that means the OT and the NT.
    Why is it important to pay attention?
    Going back to the car illustration: When we drive, we will see stop signs, flashing lights, gates that lower to stop traffic, warning signs about ice or rain. All of these are to capture our attention and alert us to the possiblity of a wreck if we don’t pay attention to driving.
    If you drive through a stop light or a stop sign, you can very easily get hit by a car coming through the intersection.
    With God, if we do not pay attention then we can easily drift away from Him. Drifting away from God has severe consequences as well.
    Someone will think, I know I am saved so if I slip just a little or do something I want, it is just a little thing and I am still saved and going to heaven. Maybe, maybe not. We can debate about what being saved means in the idea of once saved always saved. But even if we assume that to be true, we still have consequences to drifting away.
    The other night I was FaceTiming with Calum and Bre, mainly it was Cal and me. I would make a noise and he would copy it. I would do silly things and he would laugh and he would try to copy them. It was the same with Adaline. She will try to copy things that I say and do. Adaline usually calls me Dad Dad. She doesn’t really say Granddad but dad dad. We think she does this because she hears her mom call me Dad. She knows that Adam is her Dad so she calls me Dad Dad.
    These are examples of how children will mimic us. I am sure you have your own stories about little ones growing up and the things they did or tried to do because they saw an adult doing them. They pay attention to us and they try to copy what we do.
    It is the same with us. We will try to copy what we watch. I know, we are smart enough to realize everything we see isn’t something we should copy. So let me ask you this. If it is something that we should not do, then why do we watch it? I am not going to give you a list of what not to watch.
    What I will do is to remind you what the preacher of Hebrews said. “Pay attention” to what we have read and been taught about Jesus Christ and copy it.
    If we don’t; when we don’t, we will start to drift away from our Lord and Savior.

    2. Consequences of Carelessness

    And drifting away has its consequences.
    Have you ever done anything without really thinking about what you are doing? It happens all the time. We have seen it in old comedies where a person paints themselves into the corner.
    What does it mean to be careless?
    According to an online dictionary, being careless means:
    not giving sufficient attention or thought to avoiding harm or errors.
    This fits right in with the warning we have about the OT. The preacher started by reminding his readers that God had spoken long ago by His prophets and that His message and law was mediated by His angels. Now the preacher is reminding us what the consequences are for being careless or not paying attention to Christ and His salvation.
    For those who are still under the OT, who are under the Law, there is a punishment for every act of disobedience to the Law. Breaking even one law or part of one law brings the punishment of death. Death, meaning hell. Everyone who will be judged on their works will be judged under the law and there is no one who hasn’t broken every law. So there isn’t any person who is under the law who will escape hell.
    Now if those who lived under the law will not escape justice, how much more will those who turn away from the message of salvation face justice? They won’t.
    The Bible clearly teaches the consequences of sin is death. That is what each person must pay for sin. The penalty for sin is death. Or as Paul put it, the wages of sin is death.
    We can use various analogies to talk about this but the blunt truth is this. Sin brings judgment and that judgment is hell. After you die you will be judged. For everyone who is judged on their own merit, what you earn will be an eternity in hell.
    But God made a way for people to not go to hell. That way was for His Son, Jesus, to take your place on the cross to die for your sins so that you can have forgiveness.
    Jesus was born as a baby, grew up as a human, sinless and then He went to the cross in order that the sinless would die for the sinful. While we were still in our sin, He who was sinless died for us.
    After Jesus died on the cross, He was buried and then was bodily resurrected on the third day so we can also have the hope of our resurrection.
    If we are careless of this great offer of salvation then we will be judged by our sinful life and pay the consequence for our sin, death and hell.
    But the Bible tells us that God offers a way which leads to life and life abundantly; a way which leads to eternal heaven.
    Let me ask you a question.

    3. Verification with Vindications

    How do we know this is the truth?
    The preacher says that he heard the truth from those who had been with Jesus, had witnessed the death and resurrection of Jesus. And they shared their witness to others.
    In order to confirm their witness, they were able to perform miracles like those Jesus Himself did. They witnessed what jesus did. Why is that significant?
    When John the baptizer was in prison, he heard about things that Jesus was doing. He sent two of his disciples to ask Jesus if he was the one or if there was another that would follow Him. Jesus didn’t answer directly. We read that instead of a yes or no, Jesus did this:
    Matthew 11:4–6 CSB
    4 Jesus replied to them, “Go and report to John what you hear and see: 5 The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor are told the good news, 6 and blessed is the one who isn’t offended by me.”
    In other words, instead of saying yes and no, Jesus took those two disciples of John and showed them He was the Christ. Anyone could have said yes if they wanted to claim to be the Christ. Jesus proved He was. How is this proof?
    Isaiah 35:5 CSB
    5 Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
    Isaiah 61:1 CSB
    1 The Spirit of the Lord God is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners;
    Jesus proved He was the Christ by doing exactly what the OT said the Christ would do. Jesus didn’t simply say I am the Christ. Instead He proved He was the Christ.
    When Jesus sent out His Apostles to establish the church, He gave them the power, through the HS to do the miracles that Jesus Himself did.
    For those who did not get to see Jesus, Jesus sent out His Apostles to share His words of salvation with the same Spirit in them that was in Him; and with the same power to work miracles which gave testimony to who they were.
    And now, during this time, we have the words which testify to the Apostles teachings, which have been testified by the HS to those alive as they preached. And we have the same Spirit in us today which gives testimony to the truth of the words we read.
    And the words we read all testify to whom Jesus is. The Bible isn’t a bunch of books, a group of letters but they are in fact the very words of God which all point us to Christ.
    This is why we read John 14:6
    John 14:6 CSB
    6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
    I am the way, the truth and the life.
    He is not a way or just one of many truths. Nor is Jesus a life that leads to living a good life.
    It is through Jesus and Jesus alone that we find salvation.
    And we don’t have to take this on blind faith. We shouldn’t take it on blind faith. We have the testimony of God, the testimony of Jesus and the testimony of the Apostles by the Holy Spirit that Jesus is the Christ.
    But if we do not carefully keep our attention on the Christ, we can very easily drift away. Just like my sister did when she was learning to drive, we can very easily drift out of our lane and go astray.
    We must find ways to help keep us actively paying attention to our faith. We must find ways which help us to remain focused. We can read the Bible, study the Bible, attend church, make sure we stay in prayer as individuals and as a community. We must find ways that help us keep focused no matter what tries to redirect our attention.
    Any time that our primary focus is not on God, we will start to drift.
    Where is your attention? Who has your focus?
    Let’s pray.

      • Hebrews 2:1–4CSB

      • Matthew 11:4–6CSB

      • Isaiah 35:5CSB

      • Isaiah 61:1CSB

      • John 14:6CSB

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